Rossian composition

Postmodern Berlin

Josef Paul Kliehues


Aldo Rossi


James Stirling


Oswald Mathias Ungers


John Hejduk


Daniel Libeskind

New Review of THE POLITICS OF THE PIAZZA

The following review by Henri Goverde of my 2008 book appears in the inaugural issue of
BULLETIN OF ITALIAN POLITICS
ISSN 1759 – 3077
www.gla.ac.uk/bip

A link to the book is in the sidebar

The Empty House

Modern Architecture through Case Studies 1945-1990
Link in the sidebar

Aldo in York 1987

Aldo Rossi: Monument to Sandro Pertini, Milan

Aldo Rossi: New Cemetery of San Cataldo, Modena

Modern Architecture through Case Studies 1945-1990
Link in the sidebar

Death and the Monument

Aldo Ross: New Cemetery of San Cataldo, Modena

Aldo Rossi: La Nuova Piazza, Fontivegge, Perugia

As yet incomplete, Aldo Rossi’s project consisted of a broletto or public building, a residential block, a theatre building and a commercial block arranged around a piazza which spans over the road connecting to the station. The decision to accommodate car parking as a basement deck allowed for a new ground plane to be established which would be free of traffic, but followed the sloping terrain typical of traditional piazze in the region, such as Piazza IV Novembre in the same city. But far from integrating itself into the dramatic topography of Perugia, the new piazza sought to re-establish the centre at a lower and more accessible altitude, even to the extent of imitating the positioning of the individual elements of the city core. So as the piazza rises, the centrally placed fountain is flanked on the left by a public building and on the right by the dense urban wall or residential element, with the as yet to be constructed theatre closing the progression. This apparent contextualism is subverted by the realisation that the ground on which the new piazza stands is an artificial topography, the ‘authenticity’ of the plan form, its historical grounding, not extending to the section. The individuality of the elements that Rossi designed for Fontivegge suggests that his analysis of traditional urban forms found expression in the design of the new urban components yet, as he had asserted in 1966, an imitation of these forms would not itself ensure success. His new buildings are dumb structures awaiting the accretion of meaning which only the layering of history can provide. In the meantime the vacancy of their forms requires appropriation by the citizens whose attitude is one of apparent indifference to the surroundings, or at least a complete acceptance of them as organic parts of their lives, the buildings and piazza providing the surfaces against which daily and ritual activities are set.

Continuity in urbanism: Aldo Rossi's Gallaratese block

Aldo Rossi’s early substantial projects approached the issue of urban space in a stealthy manner, as if to break cover would impede the success of his strategy to recover urban values in architecture. The housing Rossi designed between 1969-70 at Gallaratese on the outskirts of Milan revealed the particular characteristics of his evocative use of typology. The principal public feature is the colonnade which runs the length of the block, providing a portico to the development on two related levels, the junction of which is negotiated by a monumental set of steps and four overscaled cylindrical columns. The daunting abstraction of this space is ameliorated by the delicate use of scale, with the endless colonnade made of frequently spaced fin walls, their dimensions related to the distance between the hands of an outstretched figure. The regularity of its form reflected its origins in traditional types of Lombard housing, however the refusal to articulate the uses to which its public element could be put meant that it was regarded as heartlessly oppressive and interpreted as a late flowering of fascism. Rossi’s principal references, historical tradition and the experience of the modern, were shared with fascist architecture. But he was working in a context where historical form had been mistrusted and modernity had became an internalised search for novelty. Its recovery and continuity of past forms is not dependent on amnesia with regard to the modern city, but the assimilation of its divergent strands. Rossi’s modest stance was that the city was beyond the capacity of design as control. Its political status had a symbiotic relationship with its form, where ends and means became one.